


a marked grave

by Skellington101



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Cody is dead but CC-2224 is alive, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Post-Order 66, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skellington101/pseuds/Skellington101
Summary: The Empire took everything from them, even more than what they realized.(Graves line the Empire's rise to power, marked graves and empty shells pulled around in a living shield-)(CC-2224 is alive, the Commander trains new cadets and sends them off to die.)(Cody marches far away.)
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & CT-7567 | Rex
Comments: 14
Kudos: 109





	a marked grave

**Author's Note:**

> Gotta love those spontaneous angsty ideas at midnight, woot woot! This is indeed more proof of why I should not write when I am Sad.

_After long campaigns of trudging through rough planet terrains, relief aid was the first to be dispatched to help the locals recover as much as they could before moving onto the next battlefield._

_The natives recovered, slowly but surely. The cacophony of battle faded away as they scrapped the evidence of it to pieces and accepted the secession to the Republic._

_Of course, the people would never forget the droid forces that tore through their planet and rained terror upon them. Droid parts would linger permanently, taken apart to forge new foundations, extra equipment, and new tools. So they endorsed the war effort, lending their support to the Chancellor and the Republic._

_And then, the army swept away as if they had never been. It was neat. Efficient._

_Easy to forget._

_The natives remembered the troopers in plastoid armor that took down enemy forces, recalled hardy soldiers lending their strength and standing tall and strong against the bombardment. They knew nothing of what laid behind the helmets. A battle, hard fought and won, but never a victory._

_The Republic disguised the aftermath from them, a facade of bravery, confidence, and far too much apathy that kept them from looking any further._

_The natives from those protected worlds never saw the trooper in 187th purple fall apart against their Commander because the assault had wiped their entire platoon out. They never saw the vode carry their dead off the battlefield, having to dress them down and stack away armor plating like it was nothing more than mere plastoid. They never saw the medic forcing himself to push another hypospray of sedative just so his vod could march away peacefully._

_Ignorance shrouded their eyes from the piles of dead vode, heaped on top of one another with limbs splaying this way and that, a gruesome imitation of how they would pile together in the barracks for comfort. There was no more comfort, no warm embrace to guide and protect them. Only lifeless eyes and still hearts. Acrid smoke blooming into the empty sky, releasing those marching away._

_Empty bunks, filled with younger and younger vode each month. Crates filled with cracked and burned plastoid, painted with beautiful illustrations that they would strip away when going through the recycling process. A trooper that has to be pinned by three of the other vode before he can pull the trigger on his rifle. Vode cradling each other in the silent aftermath, clinging to any other vode they had left, as if they would lose each other in the same instant. Whispered remembrances never drift far in the stale, reprocessed air, names lasting until the early hours of the day cycle._

_They never saw the clone troopers._

_In the end, few would._

* * *

The Rebellion never sleeps. It is constantly active, always on the move.

Even during the planet’s night cycle where Obi-Wan stays, rebel fighters filter in and out.

Several intelligence officers monitor incoming transmissions and collect reports on the Empire. As a higher ranking official, he organizes their growing information pool and attends briefings on high-risk operations, like the one he’s in now.

They’re moving in on a training base on a planet in the Outer Rim, several holos depicting the levels of security, ISB officers stationed there, and the squadrons of cadets lined up in parade rest. The captain continues briefing, but Obi-Wan is only half-listening.

Already being shipped out to fight against the Rebellion and other ‘insurgents,’ most of them barely past nineteen standard years. The holos of bleak white armor tear at something in his chest, some ragged, broken part of him, and it aches to see it happening again. Though, no process could ever compare to the clone troopers, born to fight and die from the very beginning and with no chance of a better future.

All they ever knew was the war. Now, it’s the Empire, in all of its cruel dominion. They’re minions to them, tools for the Empire to use. Any free will they had, as little as it was, had been wiped away with a couple words.

_The yells of his troopers echoed out in the cavernous space, sounds of blaster fire and explosions. Agony lanced through his chest, through the Force itself; he nearly let go of the reins, Boga still scrambling up the cavern wall—_

_Something was wrong._

_The sound of a cannon discharging rang through the air, then bone-rattling impact—_

The briefing ends, and the rest of the officers and commanders file out, one by one or in pairs, until it’s just him and Rex.

Rex avoids his eyes when he tries to search for what’s wrong, but Obi-Wan sensed the tension he held from the very beginning of the meeting when he first stepped in. Rex is hiding something, or about to tell him some information he doesn’t want to hear, and it’s enough to get him to stall in telling him.

He’s worried, because for all that they’ve been through, the constant battles, losing the Jedi with Order 66, losing the vode, Rex has never felt quite like this to him, like one step further would be too much for him to take before he collapses under the weight of whatever information he holds. Rex stands in front of him, one of the last survivors of Obi-Wan’s life, and Obi-Wan worries—panics, really—because he’ll do whatever he can for the ones he has left to live for, when they reach rock bottom or need support of their own.

“Rex,” he starts gently, folding his arms to his chest, “Is everything all right?” Where the comforting weight of his robes would’ve hidden how his hands dug into his arms, it’s not possible when they would endanger himself and those around him, so he now wears clothes of the average spacer, plain colors and black boots that would help him blend into any spaceport.

It’s one more piece he lost.

Rex, hair now speckled with grey and the lines on his face sitting heavier than before, steps closer to him. He still wears his armor, parts of it anyways, his gauntlets scuffed and worn from years of fighting. The paint is flaking off, but Obi-Wan knows he’ll never go over the old stripes with new paint. Not when his fingers brush over carved tallies and engraved names, his thumb lingering over two A’s etched side by side and a small number 5 right next to it.

They are living reminders to each other, Obi-Wan knows, in how Rex turns away if he acts a certain way. How they both stiffen when he tries to turn to a man who’s no longer there but still haunts them both. How his hands shake when Rex startles awake calling the name of another _vod_ long lost. And perhaps he’s too selfish, too attached to stop clinging to the one of the few people he loves, but he stays, he holds on, because if he lets go then there would be no coming back. There’s no one to scold him about attachment now.

“Sir,” he manages, and when Obi-Wan shoots him an exasperated look, he corrects himself, “Obi-Wan. Everything...no, it’s not alright. It’s—I don’t think you’ll want to hear this.”

Obi-Wan straightens up more, his concern slipping off into a more serious look as he waits for whatever Rex has to say. For him to say that, when all they usually get is grim reports from compromised agents and lost bases and outposts, must mean it’s personal. Something that would hurt him.

“It’s about the clones, the _vode_.”

“Was there new intelligence about the mission? I assure you, Captain, I’ve looked over most of the strategy myself. Once we intercept Cody and destroy the generators, the cadets will be too scattered with emergency lockdown to muster enough forces to get us. Unless the new information counters that?” When Rex doesn’t answer, he prods further. “Rex?”

“There’s no getting him back, sir. Cody—Commander CC-2224 has been deemed a...a lost cause by the Generals of the Rebellion. We are to destroy the generators and make sure the systems are down, and then leave the planet.” Regret, suffocating guilt and despair permeating the Force, radiate around the Captain standing in front of him. His eyes, red-rimmed and watery, don’t quite meet his own.

The realization hits, and Obi-Wan almost feels like he’d been punched. His arms unfurl and he wants to reach out to the other man, but the distance feels far too wide now. “Wh—What do you mean? Rex, why would they order that? I know that _can’t_ be true.”

The Rebellion never refused him a chance to retrieve anything or anyone from the Republic days. They let him pursue this objective willingly, along with looking for any surviving Jedi, and they definitely wouldn’t have just changed their minds unless—

Unless the objective was compromised. Unless they _knew_ _for certain_ it was hopeless.

Rex takes a shuddering breath, clenches his fist at his side and releases them to run a hand through platinum-silver curls. “I’m saying, sir, that we can’t get him back because—” his voice cracks, brittle and wavering, “because there’s nothing left of him.”

That wasn’t true at all. He was there, intelligence spotted him at the base and Obi-Wan saw him training freshly picked cadets and testing the senior troops, he’s right _there_ , they can bring him in and _remove the chip-!_

He starts fiercely, “Rex, we can take out the chip, we can get him _back_ —” but Rex interrupts him, anguish tightening his eyes and lining his features.

“We—we already _tried_.”

Something freezes in Obi-Wan’s chest.

“ _What?_ When? Why wasn’t I told, what happened?” And the worst part about that was, deep inside him, he already knows. He knows that the defeat that colors Rex’s tone punches a hole in his lungs, knows what Rex’s answer will be and it tears into him even if he hasn’t heard it yet.

The Captain reaches out and pulls him in, wrapping a hand around his forearm, resting the other on his shoulder. He visibly pulls himself together, bitterness hardening his resolve into something that can hold them both up.

“Two weeks ago,” Rex began, “they caught three clone troopers during a cargo raid. Old numbers put them in the 327th battalion, older than the last batches at the end of the war. They took their chips out. One of them, the chip rotted away. They couldn’t—couldn’t stabilize him, and he slipped away. The other two—”

Rex can’t stop the pained noise from bubbling out of his throat, and he clears it, still trying to speak. “The other two had signs of damage on their frontal lobe. The medics said—they said the chip controlled them for too long, did too much damage for them to fix. It _fried_ their memories, sir—”

It’s like a pit opens up in Obi-Wan’s stomach, deep and never-ending, like nightmares playing on repeat while he sleeps, like the overwhelming dread of too many visions ringing true.

“They don’t remember anything, Obi-Wan—”

“No—!” He denies desperately, wanting to claw the very words away until they don’t exist. Any composure he had left is shattering, and he tries to pull away, but Rex keeps holding on, even when Obi-Wan pushes against him. “No, Rex, that _can’t_ be true, it must be wrong, please—!”

He wants to scream, wants to lash out in the Force and add onto the sorrow and desolation already laced within, but he can’t. It all comes crashing down upon him, and he’s sobbing into Rex’s plastoid chest-plate, heaving breaths and clinging so desperately to the other man.

Rex leans his head down onto Obi-Wan’s shoulder, burying his face into his neck where Obi-Wan’s shirt grows wet with more tears.

“They tried _everything_ they could, Obi-Wan...They’re—They’re gone. _He’s_ gone _._ ”

All of the _vode_ , still trapped in their orders to fight for an enemy that controls them. The grief freezes in his chest, boiling and vitriolic all the same and he can barely breathe through it.

Cody, his dearest Commander. The man who stood tall and strong when Obi-Wan first met him, meeting his gaze without a hint of fear and full of spitfire determination. The man who looked after each and every one of his _vode_ , who defended them all with sheer force of will. The man who stared down Obi-Wan’s enemies right next to him and charged at the same time.

Cody, the one who cradled Obi-Wan in his arms after he wakes up screaming from memories of a battle long-passed. Cody, who smiled with warm, golden eyes and laughed so rarely it was like finding a lost artifact. Cody, who knew _him_ , knew the lies under his skin and who Obi-Wan knew in return. Cody, who he shared vows with, on the eve of their final battle.

Rex mumbles shakily into his chest, a litany of apologies and pleas, and Obi-Wan can’t control another sob escaping his throat. “ _Ni ceta...ni ceta, ner’vod_. _Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la._ ”

Cody’s gone, his wonderful riduur, Rex’s ori’vod.

_He’s gone._

The Commander stands right before them. He’s empty, a hollow shell that used to hold a brave and fierce man, all traces of personality and life from before ground into ash and smeared away.

They add another name to their remembrances that night.

* * *

_Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum._

_Jesse._

_Waxer._

_Bant._

_Fives._

_Ponds._

_Satine._

_Padmè._

_Kix._

_Kit._

_Hardcase._

_Plo._

_Gregor._

_Boil._

_Shaak._

_Aayla._

_Bly._

_Tup._

_Wolffe._

_Ahsoka._

_Anakin._

_…_

_Cody._

**Author's Note:**

> ayyy, tumblr is @skellysdomain if you wanna talk or yell at me  
> https://skellysdomain.tumblr.com
> 
> -
> 
> vode - plural for vod, which means comrade/brother  
> Ni ceta - I'm sorry  
> Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la - Not gone, merely marching far away  
> riduur - spouse  
> Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum - I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.


End file.
